Today was a lovely day for a field trip. I dropped Max off with his Nina (Godmother) and Lily and I went to join Tessa’s kindergarten class at the science center.
But a simple trip is never nearly as easy as it sounds. Halfway there I realized that I had no cash and was going to have to park downtown. I called Jay, the Human Map of Phoenix and asked him where the nearest bank was. Money, check. On to the parking garage.
We drive a large vehicle. A very large vehicle. We drive a Ford 15 passenger van (with the back bench taken out to make room for multitudes of stuff) and it is very tall. I am not sure how tall, but I know that I have squeezed into parking garages that said 6 feet 10 inches and have hit the bar in ones that say 6 feet 6 inches. I have been to the Science Center many, many times. They have a nice parking garage that the van fits in and, when you get your ticket validated at the science center, it only cost $1 to park. Not too bad! But today when I pulled in to park in that garage, the bar said 6 feet 6 inches. WHY ON EARTH would they lower the allowed car height? I know my van can fit in there, but now it won’t fit under their stupid bar at the entrance.
This is the SECOND time this has happened to me this year. Just a few weeks ago I had to take Max to a specialist appointment at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. I have parked in their garage a dozen times at least but they had changed their allowed height and put a bar in the entrance that measured 6 feet 6 inches. In fact, that is where I learned that I couldn’t fit under it. Shh, don’t tell. At Phoenix Children’s Hospital though, there is NO OTHER PATIENT PARKING. None. Zip… well, except for handicapped. I looked and looked for a place to legally park and could not find anything that did not have either a handicapped sign or say “Reserved for Dr So-and-so”. So I parked in Dr So-and-so’s space and hoped that I didn’t get towed. What is a girl to do when there is NO OTHER PARKING?
Anyway, back to today. I couldn’t park in the Science center parking garage so I had to go across the street and park (for TEN dollars!) in the Civic Plaza garage. Whatever. We made it in on piece and got to take part in the field trip.
We used to be members of the Science Center, but now I remember why we are not any more. First they charge you either membership or entrance fee. No problem (except that it is super expensive!) but then they have taken up huge chunks of their floor and exhibit space for special features that you have to pay extra for. So even if you are a member you will have to fork over a whole ‘nother wad of cash to get access to the few exhibits that have not already been there for more than ten years. To me it sounds like a bit of a r-i-p o-f-f. Take floor space away from the membership paying public and put it all towards events that their membership doesn’t cover access to. I was actually thinking that we should renew our membership just the other day so that I could take Max there more often. We won’t be doing that. They took away the little children’s area to put in… you guessed it, a paid exhibit.
But the field trip itself was lovely. The kindergarteners had their sixth grade buddies with them (so Tessa really didn’t spend much time with me, but she wanted me there anyway) and they got to see an Imax movie as well. I kind of got to watch it, I saw the parts that I could see when Lily wasn’t grabbing the 3-D glasses off my face. Then we all went to the park for lunch. A bit of an adventure, but a lovely day nonetheless!